Monday, February 02, 2009

History is funny...

I read a very interesting Wikipedia article today in my History class. In response to the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which limited the number of battleships that the signatory nations could build (by way of "tonnage" or total weight of each ship), here's what the major powers all did:

Each nation used a different approach to circumvent the treaties. The US used high strength boilers for higher speeds in a smaller ship. Germany used high strength steels for better armor and lower weight (although this was in response to the Treaty of Versailles, not the Washington Naval Treaty). Britain designed ships that could have armor added after a war began, and in the case of HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson enhanced their armour by using boiler feed water tanks as part of the protective scheme. Japan withdrew from the treaty in 1936, and continued the building program that they had previously begun, to include placing 18.1 inch (460 mm) guns on battleship Yamato. Italy simply lied about the tonnage of their ships.